1. Field
The present invention relates to a washing machine and a control method to disentangle clothes in the washing machine, and more particularly to a washing machine disentangling clothes entangled by a washing process to improve a performance of the washing machine, and a control method to disentangle clothes in the washing machine.
2. Description of the Related Art
Generally, a washing machine includes a water tub containing water (e.g., washing or rinsing water), a rotation drum rotatably installed into the water tub to contain laundry, and a motor generating a driving power to rotate the rotation drum. Therefore, the washing machine performs a washing process by allowing laundry contained in the rotation drum to move up and down along an inner surface of the rotation drum.
The washing machine sequentially performs a washing process, a rinsing process and a dehydration process. The washing process removes dust or pollution material from laundry using water (i.e., washing water) including a detergent. The rinsing process rinses the remaining detergent or bubbles out of the laundry using clean water (i.e., rinsing water). The dehydration process dehydrates the wet laundry at a high speed. Specifically, the washing process may entangle clothes constituting the laundry in the rotation drum because the clothes rotate close to an inner circumference of the rotating drum, so that the clothes constituting the laundry are not uniformly distributed in the drum, resulting in the occurrence of an unbalance caused by the eccentricity of the laundry.
If the dehydration process is performed when the laundry has been entangled in the drum, a delay of a dehydration time and a dehydration error may occur by the above-mentioned unbalance. In order to take out the laundry from the drum after completing the washing process, a user of the washing machine must exert a large force on the laundry, so that many users are not satisfied with the washing machine.
In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a laundry disentangling process is additionally performed. In the laundry disentangling process, a rotation drum is alternately rotated for a short period of time before draining water in the washing process or the last rinsing process, so that the tangled clothes are smoothly disentangled.
The conventional laundry disentangling process rotates a motor at about 40˜45 rpm in a forward direction for 5 seconds, then stops rotation of the motor for 5 seconds, rotates the motor in a reverse direction for 5 seconds, and then stops rotation of the motor for 5 seconds. In this way, the conventional laundry disentangling process alternately repeats the above-mentioned operations a predetermined number of times, so that the rotation drum is alternately rotated to disentangle the tangled laundry.
However, the above-mentioned laundry disentangling process commands the motor to be rotated at the same RPM and the same acceleration rate, so that the laundry cannot be sufficiently shaken, and is unbalanced to one side, resulting in the occurrence of serious unbalance.
In the case of another related washing machine equipped with a dryer, the laundry contained in the washing machine cannot smoothly move in the drum, so that the drying time becomes longer.